In Your Image
Leanne Emmitt
In Your Image [detail] 2026
Portrait of Patricia Emmitt
Oil on board
30.5 x 30.5 cm
About the Artwork
Infrequent contact creates a snapshot-like experience of someone’s life, with fragmented moments separated by time and the inevitability of change. On a recent visit to my family home in Perth, I experienced the jarring nature of this sporadic connection. Changes in my absence had forced a shift in gear, and as a result, the time shared with my family was uncharacteristically still.
What started as a study in form, colour, and likeness became an insight into the humanness of my mother, and a recognition of myself in her image—not in terms of a physical likeness, but in our shared mortality.
About the Artist
Leanne Emmitt was born in Western Australia, and completed a Bachelor of Fine Art with Honours, majoring in printmaking, at Curtin University of Technology, in 1996. A move to Queensland in 2015 ignited her interest in themes of transformation and belonging, and through paint and print, she has been exploring this new physical, spiritual and cultural environment. Her painted studies of cane fields and portraits of local residents reflect a desire both to record the local landscape and to find her place within it. Leanne has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions within Australia, receiving awards for landscape and portraiture painting.